Amarissa Conchita O'Hara(-T'Seya)
Amarissa Conchita O'Hara-T'Seya (Amaris O'Hara to friends, family and people who cannot be bothered using her full name) was a human officer of Citadel Security, posting in the forums under the name 'TheConch'. The adopted daughter of an Irish C-Sec Officer and his asari bondmate, Amaris often found herself struggling to connect with a culture that was supposedly her own as well as the mishmash of the two her parents attempted to raise her in. The 'work hard, play hard' type, after seven years at C-Sec she was aware of what she was capable of and what she could get away with. Tough during office hours but a complete and utter party girl outside of them, she used the forums as a way to unwind, waste free time and 'meet' people outside of her usual environments. Appearance Tall for a human woman standing at about 5’11’’, Amaris’ height and slender body type makes her seem a lot more elegant than she actually is, especially when she’s stationary. Her thuggish swagger when on duty more or less completely shatters that illusion though (although her demeanour is different off duty). Given her habit of wearing high heels (or at least slightly heeled boots), it’s much more likely to find her standing around the 6’1’’ to 6’4’’ range. Amaris has dark curly hair, often pulled back into a tight bun when she is on duty but let loose the second she isn’t, dark eyes and olive toned skin. It is these features that denote that she isn’t biologically related to her 5’8’’ red haired, somewhat stereotypical Irish father or his 5’1’’asari bondmate (although the latter should be somewhat obvious). As if to compensate for her height Amaris dresses in a very stereotypically 'feminine' way when out of uniform, rather than attempting to make herself look shorter. Asari fashion is a favourite and she tends to like clothing with an 'elegant' feel to them, although the term 'elegant' can range from a nice set of pants and expensive shirt to something a little bit more simple. History Born Amarissa Conchita Amador Merlo to a teen mother Amaris and her two siblings were given up for adoption when she was two years old. They were soon separated in the human foster care system, due to the fact that no one wanted to adopt a trio of siblings, although Amaris can’t honestly say she remembers them or has any deep rooted love for them. At the age of five she was adopted by recently appointed C-SEC officer and former military Engineer, Connall O’Hara, a single man whose military career had meant that he couldn’t settle down in the past and saw the stationary position at C-SEC as a chance to finally do so. What he hadn’t expected was to fall in love with his daughter’s dance teacher Lymeria T’Seya a year later. Officially they got together when Amaris was eight and Lymeria officially adopted her when she was ten, Amaris took the asari’s surname as proof that they were really related. Her father’s days off were spent with her, bonding over techy things while her own were spent joining her mother during dance class. The young Amaris had problems connecting with a particular culture, finding herself unable to truly connect to Connall’s Irish roots when she didn’t really share them or Lymeria’s asari culture, because the long life view of things didn’t work for her on a biological level. Free time was spent attending dance classes, messing with tech and (when her dad had the time) shooting practice. The perfect father-daughter bonding activity. Life was decent if not a tad dull and stagnant whenever her parents left her home on her own. Until she turned eighteen and met a vagrant quarian on his pilgrimage, they bonded over a supposed love of tech and want to explore. One meeting led to another, he was on his pilgrimage and their time together was going to be short why not spend it enjoying what the galaxy had to offer together? Somewhat foolishly she agreed to it and most, if not all of the credits from her part-time job went to the fund for their future adventure together. All hopes of whatever adventures planned were dashed when his body was found in some rough part of the Tayseri Ward. Despite having a father in C-Sec it was the death of her boyfriend that led to her wanting to join Citadel Security, she told herself and her dad it was so she could save anyone else in that position. Really it was more due to the powerless feeling and guilt the event had left her with. Using the money they had saved up she went to university, took an engineering course and returning to the Citadel three years later, at the age of twenty one to join C-Sec, aiming to find an apartment and some source of income before settling into her dream job. All that changed when she went out for the first time with some old friends and she met Ryana Mitora an asari matron, a woman who showed her life was about more than atoning for deaths and attempting to make one huge place better due to the death of one man was at least somewhat impossible. She took her out and probably encouraged Amaris’ love of partying to relieve stress and forget about the world more than one would care to admit. Their friendship was not without ulterior motives though, Ryana more or less funded Amaris and their lifestyle which eventually led to Amaris' departure, as she was unwilling to continue for both of their sakes leaving not knowing that Ryana had conceived a child on their last night together before Amaris became a C-Sec officer. Ryana would die just before the Reaper War, leaving their daughter Arissa in the care of her mother with instructions to contact Amaris in the event that anything happened to her. Things went relatively smoothly up until the Cerberus attack on the Citadel, she survived with relatively minor injuries (minor in comparison to others at least), various wounds, including a shot to the shoulder and several fractures. Shortly afterwards Arissa made her way into her life, obviously named after her there seemed to be no doubt in the child’s grandmother’s mind that Amaris had ‘fathered’ the child. As such, Amaris was saddled with both a child and a sort of (but not really) mother-in-law she never particularly wanted at her apartment. By the end of the Reaper War it was clear that Amaris couldn’t take care of Arissa on her own and that it was ‘unfair’ for her to spend a massive portion of her life being the single parent to an asari child in the first place. The child’s grandmother stepped in to take her back to Illium with her, leaving the C-Sec officer with nothing but an empty apartment, a framed photo on her desk and the occasional call or visit. Trivia * Practitioner of the siari religion, while not particularly devout she holds the beliefs quite close to her heart. * Combat wise, she's something of an Engineer/Infiltrator type. This does not mean she's shabby in the hand to hand combat area, especially given her habit of fighting dirty. * A talented dancer, having spent a lot of her childhood taking dance classes, Amaris is a fan of the salsa and the tango in particular. It's a shame her singing voice isn't half as good as her dancing ability. * Supposedly named after her biological grandmothers. * Went to watch Elcor Hamlet far too many times to count, she's a big fan of long vids that can be marathoned on a day off. Category:Characters Category:Humans Category:Citadel Security Services